Transportation as Democracy

Enrique Peñalosa’s transportation speech discusses the importance of using public transportation and building smarter cities for the future. The former mayor of Bogota, Colombia talks about the problem of mobility in developing worlds and the increasing problem of mobility even as the country develops.

Peñalosa describes inequality in terms of transportation in a city, where he says an advanced city means that even the rich use public transport.

In a developing country, government investment and profit-making businesses are priorities, however Peñalosa argues the opposite. He says that the market economy needs the inequality of income, and with it, comes two different forms of income inequality. The first being the equality of the quality of life, especially for children, including health education, green spaces, sports facilities etc. The second being democratic equality, which entails that all citizens are equal before the law.

Peñalosa takes the example of his own hometown, Bogota, and reveals to the audience that there are special lanes for buses to escape traffic while expensive cars are stuck in the car lane. Peñalosa also tells us that the dynamics of transportation also work like a democracy.